Do all the ants together weigh more than all of humanity?

Share

image source, think stock

caption,

Nobody really knows how there are ants.

“If we were to weigh all the ants in the world, they would weigh as much as all humans,” presenter Chris Packham said in a recent BBC documentary. Can it be true?

image source, Getty

caption,

There are ants up to 60 mg, but the average is much lower.

This was maintained for the first time by Professor Edward O. Wilson, from Harvard University (United States), and the German biologist Bert Hoelldobler in their 1994 book “Journey to the ants”.

The estimate is based on an earlier calculation by British entomologist CB Williams, who put the number of insects alive on earth at any given time at one million trillion.

“If, to take a conservative number, one percent of that is ants, the total population would be 10,000 trillion,” Wilson and Hoelldobler wrote.

You may also like...